THE GUARDS REMOVED my shackles in the holding area under the arena. I didn't have to be a genius to know it was a bad sign when the guards threw a rusty dagger at my feet. They weren't giving it to me to fight my way to freedom. This was so I could put on a show against the demons for the benefit of the spectators.

As I picked it up with both hands, I wondered how long it would take me to bleed to death if I plunged it into my own chest. Probably not quickly enough.

I wasn't the only prisoner that been granted the honor of arming herself. There was a trio of raggedy, emaciated men who had also been granted arms. Two of them looked old and weak, one of them was chubbier than the rest, and he was yelling at the guards until he was red in the face.

I recognized the red mark on the chubby one's shoulder. It was in the shape of a flame; these men were from Modryne. They had once been a respectable family in Nivarrin; now, they were widely known as a band of rebel ruffians.

Women were sobbing in the shadows. I saw a young girl, barely older than Issirae, and emaciated staring at me with hollow cheeks. The gate to the arena opened, and light flooded the holding pits. All the prisoners were driven together and then in a huddled mass of tears and screams into the sandy arena floors. I held my dagger in one shaking hand and trudged along.

Outside in the sunlight, I winced at the light. I was surprised they hadn't drawn up the stadium roofs. Prisoners like me were not accustomed to the sun, but demons absolutely hated it. As my eyes turned to the luxurious royal box with its balcony overhanging the stands below, I saw Duke Nicolet standing and peacocking about in front of his foreign guests.

This was not an oversight. We weren't here to face demons. I waited in the sand with the other prisoners for the fat cats up above to decide our fate. Duke Nicolet had other plans for now. He was standing and beaming at his guests. Mighell Nicolet was a beady-eyed, Fagin of a man with a hooked nose, unkept beard, and oily skin. The word on the street was that his nickname in the military forces was boot-licker. The Chinese businessmen from Yageron called him the mă pì chóng or suck-up worm.

"People of Nivarrin, may I present  — Prince Orion Moraru Balan Sarastri!" The Duke proclaimed to the cheering crowds. "Long have you waited to set your eyes on him. As we can all see, he is a dashing young man."

"Can you think of a more pompous name?" Zaspyr whispered to me. "I think we should all just call him Xiao Móguǐ like they do in the north."

I chuckled at that. We had more of an Eastern influence where I came from. We were a mining and manufacturing region and Yageron's Chinese workers often came and settled in the northern wildlands. Yes, they would have called him Prince Sarastri to his face then little devil behind his back.

Dashing wasn't quite the word I would use to describe Orion Balan. I thought his black hair and long face reminded me of a rodent. He placed a gloved hand over his face as though the Duke's histrionic introduction was making him uncomfortable. Good, I thought to myself. I hope he had the vaguest inkling of how much we would all rather hold our hands to the fire than to clap for him. I wondered if he saw the graffitied walls just off the main boulevard saying Death to the Sathariel King. I wondered if he even knew that is what we called his father here in Nivarrin - King Satan. 

"I hope he catches syphilis from sharing whores with Leonel," I whispered back.

A woman was standing beside the prince who caught my eye. For a second, our eyes seemed to meet. She was proud, statuesque, with snowy blond hair. She was not Nivarrin. I knew a Manna City bitch when I saw one. My concentration was interrupted by the sound of opening gates. Across from us, an entourage of soldiers appeared — all armed to the teeth. On their bodies, they wore chain mail armor enchanted against demonic waters. In their gauntlet protected hands, they carried spears tipped with metal that had been treated with Dark Waters.

Slowly, I started to understand what the greasy Duke Nicolet had planned for that day's entertainment. He wanted to show off the Nivarrin army to his guests. Where else would he start than to have his personal police force take out the rebels in a staged battle?

The three Mordryne men decided to make one last stand and charged the guards with one last battle cry. The black-tipped spears cut through their bodies like butter. My mind could barely process what was going on as I watched one of the guards drive his spear cleanly through the skull of the rebel men lying on the sandy ground choking on his own blood.

My family had once made our fortune mining Dark Waters, that was true. For much of my childhood, I watched my brother continue my family business. That was until Duke Nicolet's men murdered him and sold my nephews into slavery when I was thirteen. I had been on my own since then.

Metal and Dark Waters was what my family had worked in for generations. It was in my genes. It seemed ironic that I was about to be cut down by the very creation that had been the lifeblood of my ancestors.

"At least we'll die a clean death," Zaspyr whispered to me as he ripped off his shirt and lifted his dagger. I saw a wet stain on his pants, and I didn't even care to wonder if he pissed himself in fear. If I had anything left in my belly, I would have shat myself too. At the very least, I had strength enough to walk to my death.

At the last minute, I glanced back up at the box where the royals were sitting. That blonde girl was pointing at the dead and suppressing a giggle with her other hand. She seemed to bounce up and down with glee as one of the wailing women was cut down before me.

We who are about to die, salute you, stupid Manna City tart, I thought to myself as I raised my hand to her with my middle finger raised. I didn't care if she saw it or not. I knew the crowd did. That was enough.

Beside me, the leader of the armed men drove his spear into Zaspyr's shoulder. His blood splattered all over my face as he fell.

It didn't matter. I had a man approach me, as well. This one was holding an ax. It seemed almost comical that he needed a weapon of that caliber to take off my head from its skinny neck. If anything was to be learned from the death of Mary Queen of Scots, it's better to more dead than less dead when it comes to being beheaded.

The armored man swung his ax at me. I expected it to cut me in half, but instead, I heard a weak cry as the young girl with the hollow cheeks fell before me. He had cleaved her in half from the neck down. There was a giant bloody V where her chest used to be. He waited for her body to stop twitching before he approached me. He licked his lips as he stood over me. This wasn't merely his duty; it was a pleasure.

I didn't know what I was doing or thinking at that minute. My knees had turned to rubber, and I was sure, despite my dehydration and starvation, I felt a trickle of urine down my inner thigh. As the man raised his ax to me, I lifted my hand and caught the weapon by the blunt part of the heel. It cut into my hand, but I didn't feel it.

It was dumb, so very dumb to fight back - to show them what I could do. My brother had his throat slit from ear to ear without revealing what I was about to reveal. Zaspyr was right; I was northern, we had our own secrets in the hilly mountains of Nivarrin. My family had been metalsmiths for generations from my father's side.

This was my legacy.

I felt the demonic energy inside the man's ax, and I absorbed it into myself. With my other hand, I grabbed the one exposed part of his body — his face. The demon energy flowed through me like a lightning rod. He wasn't expecting this. Under his helmet, I saw his jaundiced eyes widen.

Good, that only made them bigger targets. I dug my fingers into his eye sockets, my fingers burning the flesh from his skull. I barely heard his screams or the gasps of the crowd behind me. I only felt myself fading from consciousness. I couldn't keep this up or hold on for much longer. With one last stab of my fingers, I ripped his eyes out of their sockets and threw them onto the bloody sand at my feet. 

I staggered backward, and the entire world seemed to spin before my dizzy eyes. Blood was freely flowing from my nose, eyes, and ears. I was the daughter of a family of metalsmiths; I wasn't meant to fight like this. Even before all the soldiers turned their attention to me and advanced on me, I knew my body was giving out.

A blow came from behind, and then there was darkness.